so in seattle what we called snowmageddon, december of 2008 we had a big snowstorm. heaven forbid, you don't use salt in seattle because that's bad for the environment. particularly, they said, it was bad for puget sound. it's a saltwater estuary. so adding a little bit of salt to a saltwater estuary, probably okay. the salmon will be all right. [laughter] instead, instead you take plows, and you pack down the snow and sprinkle sand on top. now, how many of you if here think that strategy will hurt? it did not. in fact, what we had was ice potholes where you'd be driving on top of this ice rink with sand on top, and potholes would form in the ice, so you would be going up and down like -- it was the boris thing i've -- worst thing i've ever seen. and that's actually worse for the environment. sand is one of the things you want to keep out of streams because sand will get woo the gills of -- will get into the gills of fish. well, that didn't work out well. mayor greg nichols was bounced in the primary and was replaced by a guy who immediately fixed the problem by just